


A Painful Memory

by LunaJade



Series: Magic Kaito & Detective Conan One-Shots/Short Fictions [1]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Gen, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 21:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18170156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaJade/pseuds/LunaJade
Summary: "It was impossible.He’d checked every inch of the room that he could, and there’d been no one. There were no other doors except the one he’d entered in, and it had remained solitary, stayed unopened.Then the anonymous figure appeared from within the darkness.It was her.Vermouth."~~Kaito has reluclantly agreed to assist Conan in the takedown of the Black Organization. Upon sneaking in to complete his part of the plan, he comes across some memories he thought he'd locked away...a familiar face, a former friend whom he'd known through his father...a woman going by the name of Sharon.Detective Conan One-Shot{Kaito meets Vermouth}





	A Painful Memory

_Alright KID, I leave it up to you!_

And with those words, Conan had dashed off.

 _Yeah, yeah, I got it,_ Kaito thought. _But I really shouldn’t have agreed to this…_

                _He just loves to put me in dangerous situations, doesn’t he? That little brat, he doesn’t even like to give me the proper credit._

                This so-called “Black Organization” that the meitantei had made enemies with…

                No. Kaito needed to remind himself that Conan had never been Conan in the first place, but in fact Shinichi Kudo, the famous high school detective, said to have gone missing many months ago…

                _I’d had my suspicions…but to think that that was actually the case…_

                So, this so-called “Black Organization” that Kudo had made enemies with…

                _You need to be extra cautious,_ that brown-haired girl had told him. Haibara, from what Kaito remembered. _If they see anyone as even a minimal threat, they will not hesitate to kill them. No matter how good of an escape artist or a thief that you may be, I’d suspect…no…I **know** that they’ll have equal countermeasures._

So they’d said. Each of them had explained everything they knew about the organization, their plan to take them down. That man, Shuichi Akai, the FBI agent, Rena Mizunashi, the CIA agent as well as the mole Kir, Tooru Amuro, the member of the PSB and the mole Bourbon, Yusaku and Yukiko, Kudo’s parents.

                They’d explained who was who in the organization, like the snipers Chianti and Korn.

                _They’ll take any chance they get to shoot you down,_ Mizunashi had said.

                And then there were the members “to truly fear”, according to Haibara.

                Gin, the one who’d put the meitantei in his predicament. Both Shinichi and Haibara had expressed their fear of Gin: He was ruthless, and spared no mercy from those who got in his way, along with Vodka, his partner.

                Rum, identity still unknown. The second in command to the boss.

                _And to think that the boss is Renya Karasuma…I thought he’d died a long time ago…and if he is who everyone says he is…then the meitantei is in trouble._

And finally there was one in particular, one that everyone only needed to describe with a single look: _Avoid them at all costs_.

Vermouth.

She was known for her sly, deceptive personality. Haibara was terrified of her.

She was the boss’s favorite, with a special connection to him, if what Amuro had said was correct. He had made a name for himself in the reconnaissance division of the organization, and had been able to discover Vermouth’s relation to the boss.

He’d been shown pictures of every known organization member. Kaito agreed: They did all look intimidating, like they could kill you in a split second.

And there was something about Vermouth that made his skin crawl.

She seemed… _familiar_ to him somehow. He just couldn’t place the memory…

“Hey, KID,” said a sultry female voice next to him. Kaito whipped his head to look down at Mary, momentarily startled. It took him a moment to realize that Kudo and the rest of his allies had left, only the two of them left standing in the dark hallway.

“W-What?” Though Mary only looked like an elementary or middle school student, her mature demeanor temporarily startled him. Kaito had to remind himself that she was just like Kudo: her body shrunken by the APTX4869.

And this was the night. The night that she and Kudo, along with the rest of their friends and family, hoped to take down the organization once and for all and restore their bodies and lives back to normal.

Mary scratched her head, her fingers temporarily lost in her short, silver-blond hair.

“You heard the boy. You agreed to assist us. Now get going. All that Conan asked of you was to sneak in and disable the cameras so we aren’t discovered immediately. Kir said she would wait outside of the room for you until you’re done, just in case if you need any backup.” He even said, _When you do that, you can leave._ So go on. Get it over with.”

Kaito did his best to maintain his poker face. He put on one of his KID-like smirks. “And yet, even if I am able to get the cameras shut down, if I’m seen, or if they force the information out of one of you, it won’t really matter whether I leave or not, right? This’ll be the second giant red target on my back, besides _them_ …”

“ _Them_ …huh?” Mary raised an eyebrow, stared directly into his face without even the slightest falter or hint of a question in her expression.

“Listen, I know, _we_ know that you don’t want to share your identity with us. But Conan respects you and your abilities, which is why I think he asked you to join us. I think he said that he enjoys going to your heists because you’re each other’s rivals, worthy of one another’s respects because of that. I’ve heard a lot about your heists, and I can see why he’d think that. It’s not just because you’re a thief, and he wants you to own up to your crimes. But he and I, and everyone else in this fight understands one thing: While we don’t know anything about you, we know that you’re like us. We _all_ have targets on our backs. We _all_ have something that we’re looking forward to, someone that we want to return to. And if we _do_ fail…”

Kaito stared at her in silence, slowly taking in her words, never forgetting a thing said.

“If we do fail, then we won’t have any of that to go back to. We may not be the only ones in danger. They’ll target the ones closest to us. You should know that, right? No matter what, not one side will leave unscathed.”

Kaito stared on in awe. He wondered if Mary was a mind reader, if she had suspicions that he’d been chasing his own organization since his first day as the phantom.

 “So _that’s_ why we will be successful in taking them down. We have to protect those close to us. Whether you are seen tonight or not, if you are, _when_ you escape, they’ll be too busy dealing with us. And you wouldn’t have to worry about a target, because hopefully by tomorrow, they’ll be locked up in chains and sent to the cells that they deserve.”

They stood in silence for a moment. Mary had her eyes closed, possibly to calm and prepare herself for the showdown about to unfurl. Kaito, meanwhile, looked back on her words. He knew that he would remember them forever, engrave them in his heart.

_We all have someone that we want to return to._

“KID,” Akai has shown up behind Mary. He gave Kaito a respectful nod. “Is your disguise ready?”

Kaito nodded ever so slightly, adjusting his jacket and tie before pulling the mask of Amuro over his head.  Maybe he hadn’t known any of these people for long, but in the day or so he had, he’d already perfected a perfect imitation of Amuro’s voice. Add to the fact that Kaito had encountered him once before already…

“Good. We’re all set up. Mother, are you ready?”

“Yes,” Mary turned her back and walked in the direction her son had come from, not looking back once. Akai follows, only giving Kaito the slightest of nods. Kaito’s eyes follow them slowly.

“Oh, and KID?”

Mary had stopped and turned around. She had her intent gaze on the phantom thief, not backing down, her piercing emerald eyes seeming to stare right into him.

“Never falter. Not tonight. Especially not against them.”

~~

The only easy step had been getting to the security control room. All he needed to do was to carry himself with confidence, follow what Amuro had told him, trained him in, as he followed the directions given to him by Akai.

 Standing outside, checking something on her phone, was Kir, wearing the traditional black jumpsuit of the female organization members, gun secured in the holster on her belt. Luckily for them, there were no cameras that were currently facing them, giving them a few seconds at best before they swung back in their direction.

“Bourbon,” Mizunashi gave him a nod. Kaito nodded back.

“Are you ready?”

Kaito took a deep breath. Yes, his job may be easy, but like Haibara had said, he had to be careful, no matter how long it took him or how simple and easy it was. For all he knew, a hoard of organization members lurked inside, already aware of their plans. He took a deep breath, tried to steady himself.

“Yeah,” he said, in his imitation of Amuro’s voice. “I’m ready.”

~~

The good news was that there was not a hoard of organization members waiting to ambush him.

In fact, upon glancing around the room, Kaito didn’t see anyone at all. He did a quick walk around looking for any member that may have been cloaked in the shadows, and found no one.

There were no lights on, but the large amount of monitors filled with footage eerily lit up the room like a movie theater.  He glanced upon the many keyboards and wires laying atop and under the desk. He frowned. The wires were all exactly identical and tangled up: It would be impossible to go through every one of them. Maybe Kaito’s passion wasn’t technology and electronics, but he’d learned enough as Kid the Phantom Thief to know how to disable cameras and shut down security banks without anyone seeing him.

He carefully approached the snakelike wires, pulled out a small wire cutter from his pocket. He inspected them as carefully as he could, examining and calculating where each wire would go: Which one would go to which monitor, which keyboard.

He leaned over the desk, picking up one of the wires and lifting the wire cutter to it. Then he stopped.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t realized it before.

 _Why_ wasn’t anyone here?

It didn’t sit well with him.

Why would they leave access to their security wide open?

_You would think they would have at least one person to keep watch…_

_Unless if it’s a trap…_

“Why, Bourbon, whatever are you doing?”

Kaito’s head whipped around, eyes widening.

It was impossible.

He’d checked _every_ inch of the room that he could, and there’d been no one. There were no other doors except the one he’d entered in, and it had remained solitary, stayed unopened.

Then the anonymous figure appeared from within the darkness.

It was her.

Vermouth.

~~

She took a step towards him, silver-blue eyes narrowing. Kaito slowly slipped the wire cutter back into the inner pocket of his jacket, cautiously reaching towards a hidden one containing his card gun if the need arose. He straightened himself, crossing his arms, keeping his sneaking arm hidden from vision behind the other.

_No, wait. Even if she thinks it, she’s not expressing that she knows I’m KID in disguise. I may have a chance to get out of this, and come back to this job later. All I’ll need is some good improv…_

_That may not be the case though…it’s possible she saw me about to cut the wire…_

“I was sent here by Gin to check on the security,” Kaito said, trying to keep his poker face steady. If he let his surprise show, it was all over.  “He thinks that someone may have broken in, so he sent me to check and report back to him.”

“So why did you place a wire cutter back into your pocket?” Vermouth flipped a strand of long, platinum colored hair over her shoulder. “I guess that means you’re a NOC, if you’re trying to sabotage us like that.”

“W-Well, I guess it’s just out of habit!” He let out a light chuckle. “When I joined, I was trained in these types of things so they could help me with intel gathering, so I just feel like I’m on another mission.”

“Hmm…is that really the case?” Vermouth took another step towards him. Kaito had to resist the urge to back up.

_She really does seem familiar…the way she talks, and even carries herself reminds me of someone…but who?_

“Yes! I swear, that was it.”

 “And if you were really checking the cameras like you supposedly promised Gin, then I thought I would’ve heard you making some kind of remark about Shuichi Akai, who’s shown on this monitor,” Vermouth pointed behind her at one of the monitors, which showed Akai, his sister Sera, and Mary, who were busy beating up some underlings of the organization with their jeet-kune-do. “Especially since _you_ hate him for killing your friend, he’s the supposed _silver bullet_ , _and_ because Kir had supposedly killed him.”

Kaito felt drops of sweat emerging on his neck. He flashed back to what Kudo, Amuro, and Akai had told him the day before.

 _“Kir had been ordered by Gin to kill Akai, because it was found out he was an FBI agent,”_ Conan had said. “ _So we came up with a plan, and helped Akai fake his death.”_

 _“I used to have a hatred for him,”_ Amuro had told him later. _“Because I thought he’d killed one of my friends, Scotch, another member of the PSB, when that actually wasn’t the case. But we all want to take the organization down. So I think I’ve moved past that.”_

 _“The boss calls me ‘The Silver Bullet’, because he thinks I can take down the organization.”_ Akai had pulled him aside to tell him.

_Now, how do I slip past this one…?_

“But isn’t it possible I hadn’t looked over all of the monitors yet?” Kaito said, his hidden hand preparing his card gun.

Vermouth took one step closer to him. It took all of Kaito’s willpower not to back up. He shouldn’t have felt nervous or afraid, but he could see why Haibara was terrified of her. On the outside, she looked normal enough. But she could shoot you down with a single glance.

_Don’t be afraid. You’re the renowned Kid the Phantom Thief. As long as I don’t get called out, I may be able to get out of this…_

Vermouth’s eyebrow raised slightly. Then she reached up, pinched his cheek, and pulled.

_Hard._

_Dang it, what now?_

“Vermouth, what are you doing?” Kaito tried to say. “Why are you---“

Vermouth gave him a thin evil smile. It was unnerving, how evil she could look with a single smile.

“Oh? Are you really sure you should be asking me that…?” She leaned closer, and whispered those two dreadful words, the ones that surely meant his failure.

“Kaito Kid?”

~~

At that second time seemed to stop. Beads of cold sweat made their way down Kaito’s neck.

He managed to push Vermouth’s arm away and took a step back, only to find himself up against the wall.

He’d been cornered.

Vermouth reached up and pulled again. Kaito let out a mild cry of alarm as he felt the mask give way, felt the latex mask get ripped off of his face.

“Ow!” Kaito hissed.

_How is she able to rip the mask off? I put special glue on the inside of it—it’s not supposed to come off with just a few tugs!_

A triumphant smile flashed across Vermouth’s face. “Judging by your look of surprise, KID, I’d say that you laced the mask with special glue right? I should know. I, like you, am a master of disguise. I should know the tricks for removing those kinds of masks, quickly and easily..”

Kaito massaged his cheeks for a minute. Pulling off a mask, especially when you’d used the glue to keep it from coming off, was extremely painful. Especially since Vermouth had pulled his mask off so hard, all the more so.

_I, like you, am a master of disguise._

_Vermouth is a so-called master of disguise. Now she seems even more familiar to me…_ These thoughts were racing around his head.

“Alright, alright, you got me,” Kaito held up his hands in a show of mock defeat. “Now what do you want?”

_Don’t forget your poker face. You’ll get out of this. Maybe if I’m lucky I can knock her out and tie her up?_

“Well…” Vermouth dropped his mask to the ground and crushed it under her black high heels. “I’d suspect you’re here assisting Cool Guy, as well as Sherry, right?” She jammed a thumb over her shoulder to the monitors, at one with certain people in the frame:

Conan and Haibara.

“So what if I am?”

“If you are, then I guess it’d be just like last time huh? We all thought Bourbon had had Sherry killed, but, like my prediction said: That was you, wasn’t it? I guess it was convenient that you just happened to be on the Mystery Train at that time. Otherwise Sherry would’ve been killed.”

Kaito coughed into his fist. “I guess it was. To be fair, I owed him a favor, so…”

Kaito blinked and found Vermouth still taking more careful steps towards him. Each _click_ of her high heels echoed in his brain like a hammer. Finally she stopped, stood there in silence.

And it was unnerving.

Finally Kaito regained his focus, whipped out his card gun, and took a large step away from her

“Alright, what's with you? Why do you seem so…I don’t know… _intrigued_ by me? Why not send someone else to confront me?”

Vermouth gave what looked like both a sly and sad smile. Kaito didn’t know why. He didn’t understand.

And he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“I apologize. I guess that you just remind me of your father. He was my mentor, you know.”

Kaito’s eyes widened. “M-My father? Your mentor? Even if you did know my father, how would you know that’s him if you don’t know who _I_ am?”

“Of course I would know who you are. You look just like how you were 12 years ago, be it older.”

“Yeah, well I’m pretty sure I didn’t know a _murderer_ named Vermouth 12 years ago.”

“Come now, don’t talk like that. Stop trying to deny it. Your father _is_ Toichi Kuroba, right?”

“Kai-chan?”

~~

That nickname.

He knew.

He remembered.

It was _her_.

“Hey, KID?” He heard Kir say through his earpiece communicator. “You’ve been in there for quite a while. Is everything alri—“

Kaito reached up and turned it off.

“S-Sharon?” he said. “Sharon…Vineyard?”

“Ah, there you go! I guess you do remember after all.”

Kaito desperately tried to think of something to get out of it. But she had figured him out. His father, Toichi Kuroba, and himself, Kaito Kuroba.

He flashed back to the first and only time he’d met her. He’d been 5 or 6, and had wanted to tag along with his father on a trip he was making. He’d been going to meet up with some old pupils of his, a Yukiko Kudo and Sharon Vineyard, both accomplished actresses.

_“Oh, is this your son?” Sharon said. “He’s cute. What’s his name?”_

_“This is my son Kaito,” Toichi Kuroba said. “He wanted to tag along, so I decided to bring him with me.”_

_“Kaito? What a perfect name! I think it fits him extremely well!” Yukiko had declared._

_“I agree.” Sharon bent down and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Kai-chan. My name is Sharon. And this is Yukiko.”_

_“Nice to meet you!” Kaito declared. He produced two roses from the palm of his hand, a trick his father had just recently taught him. “I think you’re both beautiful!”_

_“Why, thank you,” Sharon said, gently taking the rose from his hand. “Toichi, you sure have taught him your gentlemanly ways, haven’t you?”_

_“I suppose I have. He’s even told me that he aspires to be a magician like me, so I’ve been recently teaching him some magic.”_

_“Well I’m sure he’ll grow up as talented as you. I guess I’ll have to come see your show one day. Don’t you agree, Kai-chan?”_

_Kaito nodded his head in agreement, and grinned a great big smile. “Yeah! Promise me!”_

_“I promise. I’ll look forward to it…”_

It was impossible. Even if it really was her, she didn’t look anything like how she was 12 years ago. Not even close.

 _That_ Sharon Vineyard had been between 30 and 40, had short blond hair, round glasses, and a face that was both old and young: A few wrinkles here and there, but still with that specific look of youth.

 _This_ Sharon Vineyard looked much younger—someone only in her twenties or thirties. Long platinum hair, perfect skin, intense azure-gray eyes.

He supposed it was possible she’d gotten plastic surgery, but for some reason she didn’t seem like the type of person to do that. And even if she had, her face should’ve had _something_ wrong with it. Be it a scar or blemish. But there weren’t any. _The closest we’ve ever been to catching her was on Halloween. The best we could do was shoot at her, and we only managed to break her ribs and graze her face,_ FBI agent Jodie Starling had said.

It couldn’t have been.

 “M-My father…Your mentor…” Kaito tried to pull more details from the back of his mind. “He taught you and Yukiko Kudo… He taught you two the arts of disguise.”

She smirked in triumph. “Why, yes he did. He was a wonderful teacher, you know. I was truly devastated to hear about his death.”

“But you…” Kaito stared her up and down in horror. “You shouldn’t be here. I read last year about how you passed away. Even if you _were_ still alive, you should be much older than the last time I saw you. You should be in your 40s or 50s. It’s imposs—“

_I am a master of disguise._

“By that look on your face, I’d say you have it all figured out, or at least have a guess, don’t you?”

 _According to Agent Jodie, she looks exactly the same as she did 20 years ago,_ Conan had said.

“So Sharon Vineyard…that was all a disguise? Who _are_ you? How…how is this possible?”

“That first part is correct, but I’m afraid that the rest is classified information, Kai-chan. After all…” She winked and held up a finger in front of her lips.

_“A secret makes a woman, woman.”_

Kaito stood there, dumbfounded, in silence. All this time…Sharon had been alive. He remembered his mother’s reaction to her death—upset, shocked. According to his mother, she’d met Sharon once or twice, seeing as how she was his father’s acquaintance.

_His father’s acquaintance._

_Wait…the person who murdered Dad was a guy named Snake. The meitantei told me that all of this organization has members with codenames based off of alcohol. If I remember correctly, I think “Snake” is a type of wine…_

_If that’s the case…could the organization I’ve been chasing, along with this one…be…one in the same?_

“Well? I’m sorry to have to interrupt our reunion but I’m afraid I’m going to have to either take you to the boss or to kill you. Forgive me, KID.”

“Sure, but I’ve just got one question.” Kaito took a deep breath, preparing his card gun. If he were to go down fighting, at the very least he might be able to trying to avenge his father’s death.

“Oh? And what might that be?”

“Is there a member of your organization named Snake?”

Vermouth raised an eyebrow, seemingly taking this under consideration. “There’s no member of this organization named ‘Snake’. Why do you ask?”

“I—“

 “What am I in your eyes? A liar? A murderer? An acquaintance? Even if there was a member named Snake, what reason would you have to believe me?”

Kaito lowered his head. “I don’t have reason to believe you. But I guess I would know if what you said was false. We’re both similar in one respect: We’re both liars, aren’t we?”

“And as for me asking…it’s because I am enemies with a man of that name—he took away someone…someone who meant the world to me. So I’m trying to gain vengeance for that person.”

“I see…”

She seemed to understand. Kaito could feel his eyes twitching, and when he reached up to rub them, he was surprised to find tears there.

This was different than Kaito Corbeau, the thief with his father’s face. Though it seemed like his father was back from the dead, Kaito had realized afterwards it wasn’t him. He’d spent his life learning how to read people, and he knew afterwards that Corbeau had not been him.

His first instinct to that had been rage, anger. At first he’d thought it was because it seemed liked Toichi Kuroba was back. Had he been alive all that time, and didn’t even bother to come back, to comfort the very people who’d mourned him most?

Then afterwards he’d realized that it: he’d had the gut reaction that it wasn’t him. Corbeau being there had just been an insult to the memory of Kaito’s father.

And now this…

Why. It had once been a fond memory.

Why did all of a sudden it have to be turned around into one of pain?

His father had been the first. Sharon had been second.

The people he cared about, loved, the ones he respected and had looked up to, so many of them had died.

And now to see one of them back…after such a long time…knowing that his grief was all in vain…

It was cruel.

So cruel.

“I guess you’re just going to stand there crying, huh? I think I’ve made a choice, if we’re going to go past this. You’re coming with me to the boss.”

Kaito didn’t hear her. His thoughts crowded his head, desperately wanting to escape. He wanted to scream at her, or cry, or do anything. _Anything_.

But he was frozen.

Vermouth lunged towards him suddenly. For a split second, Kaito was snapped out of his trance, and he whipped out his card gun on instinct, preparing to fire.

Then he keeled over, hard iron barbs piercing his skin.

His body went numb. He collapsed, his body shaking from the electricity coursing through his veins, card gun skittering out of his hand and rolling to the opposite side of the room. He watched in agony as Vermouth pocketed a taser, her face, for once, showing what seemed like a show of regret, pain.

Regret.

 _Now_ he didn’t know if he could believe her.

_Why…_

Slowly his vision went black, his world slipping into unconsciousness.

“Forgive me…Kai-chan…”

**Author's Note:**

> This one was both fun and difficult to write.  
> I always worry about sticking close to the characters' original personalities, so I hope I did okay with that here! I apologize if there were errors in parts, I still haven't fully caught up on everything in Detective Conan.
> 
> This work can also be viewed on Wattpad


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